More fireworks at the State Capitol. Congressional redistricting coming up

So far, the start of the special session of the Texas Legislature has been kind of quiet. In fact, the Senate didn't even meet Wednesday.

But the fireworks could start as early as Thursday morning when the House Redistricting Committee holds a public hearing on congressional redistricting, traditionally the most contentious of all redistricting fights in any statehouse.

Although Chairman Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, said in a letter to his House colleagues on Wednesday that the panel won't vote on the proposed congressional map he and his Senate counterpart Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, unveiled Tuesday, you can bet there'll be lots of unhappy witnesses - despite the short notice.

Democrats and representatives from civil rights groups argue that the boundaries of the 36 districts in the Seliger-Solomons plan grossly violate the one-person, one-vote provision of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

They argue that Hispanics alone accounted for at least 60 percent of the explosive population growth in Texas during the past decade and thanks to such growth the state gained four congressional seats. Therefore, a fair map should have at least three Hispanic-opportunity districts.

"The congressional redistricting map unveiled yesterday by Republicans in the state legislature is the clearest example of Republicans' deliberate attempts to dilute Hispanic and African-American representation in Texas," the Democratic members of the Texas Congressional Delegation wrote in a joint statement.

"Despite the fact that Texas’s minority population has grown substantially over the past decade, becoming the state’s majority population, the Republican proposed map suppresses their influence," the Democratic congressmen wrote.

And anticipating that the Seliger-Solomons map wouldn't reflect the growth of the Hispanic and African-American growth in the last decade, particularly of Hispanics, representatives from civil rights groups said last Friday they intend to challenge such map in court.

They also plan to challenge the Texas House and Senate maps Seliger and Solomons drew and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed during the regular session.

Although Seliger and Solomons said Tuesday their congressional map complies with the Voting Rights Act, what happens at Thursday's hearing is likely to be repeated Friday when the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting Seliger chairs holds its own hearing.

However, the real fight is when the proposed map and the bil to pass it go to the House and Senate floors for a debate and a vote. With the blessing of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the Senate, and of House Speaker Joe Straus, Seliger and Solomons have yet to decide on the date and time.

But it should be soon. Who knows? Perhaps as late next week or in two weeks at the most. By law, the special session cannot last more than 30 days and after Friday's Senate redistricting hearing there will be only 26 days left. So, stay tuned.